Mosaic - Jeri Taylor [48]
But the memory of the fear in the old woman's eyes was too urgent to be ignored. She couldn't leave now. She forced herself to hold Cheb's gaze. And finally he looked away.
"Be at the beam-out site in an hour. I'll arrange another transport." There was no bitterness in his voice; it was completely neutral, as though they were discussing the weather.
"Fine." She saw the others start down the stairs, and she went the other way, onto the landing, and down the corridor where the mysterious door stood open, spilling flickering light onto the threadbare carpet. She moved toward it soundlessly, without apprehension, pulled along as though by an unseen thread.
CHAPTER 11
HARRY AND KES HAD PULLED THEIR PHASERS INSTANTLY, flung themselves against the side walls of the stone corridor, and trained their weapons on the Kazon.
Strangely, the Kazon seemed unaware of them, and instead turned in place, looking around them, speaking softly to each other. Speaking silently to each other, in fact. Harry realized they were talking and gesturing with some energy-why couldn't he and Kes hear them?
He saw Kes looking upward and realized she, too, was aware of something strange. He glanced back at the Kazon and now saw that they were standing against a background of foliage. Of course there was no foliage down here-but there was above ground. The figures of the Kazon moved off; he uttered a short laugh and holstered his phaser.
"What is it? Where are they?" asked Kes. "It's an ancient device. On Earth they called it a camera obscura. There's a lens up above, positioned so it reflects an image onto this surface." Harry examined the smooth wall against which they had seen the Kazon, and saw that it was a finely ground surface. Images projected onto it would be seen in a well-detailed and undistorted reflection. That was why the Kazon had seemed so real. "It's odd," he mused, studying the wall. "A camera obscura is primitive technology, but this surface is very sophisticated, composed of several hard polymer agents."
Kes looked around them, playing her wrist beacon in all directions. "I wonder if the fact that it's here means there's some significance to this location."
He shot her a glance. "I think you're right. The fact that someone could be warned of activity on the surface from here would suggest this is someplace they wanted to protect."
They looked around to realize they had reached a Tintersection in the corridors, with the "screen" forming the back wall and two branches of tunnels extending right and left from it. They began searching all the walls carefully, running their hands over the surface, looking for any detail, any design that might provide a clue to the importance of this intersection.
Ten minutes later, they were still searching, when suddenly Kes' head snapped around and she froze like a bird anticipating a predator. "What?" Harry said, but she shushed him, straining as though to hear something far away. Then she began moving down the corridor to the left, walking with a sureness that belied the inky blackness of their surroundings.
Harry followed. Kes seemed in touch with something, and he had learned to trust her instincts. He kept her in the beam of his wrist beacon, and she seemed to float before him, a dainty, weightless creature gliding in the blackness.
Suddenly she stopped, and lifted her hand to stop him, too. Then, slowly, she turned to him, and he saw an expression of wonder and anticipation on her face.
"Somewhere close... I know it's here...."
"What is?"
But she kept turning in place, as though trying to tune in to whatever extrasensory perception she was experiencing. "I'm not sure. I hear that sound again... it's... it's a clicking noise."
"Like a code?"
"I don't know."
Harry scanned everything and was about to give up when the tiniest blip registered on his tricorder. What was it? He moved in the direction he had picked up the reading, and approached what seemed to be a dead end